On this day off I reflect on where my choices and life have led me, and, even through all of the things that have happened that seemed at the time like setbacks, I can truly say that I have had a pretty good life thus far.
Whether I have talent or a gift or skill or false hope I am grateful for this thing that I do oh so frequently. I don't know what my life would be like without it. I know that is difficult for some people to understand, but I have this unstoppable drive to create, to transcribe my thoughts and feelings into words and stories and characters and situations and rambling bullshit and nonsense, and I am grateful for it.
I see so many people wandering around, lost, heads spinning, unable to navigate through life without experiencing all the pains and difficulties every moment of every second of every minute of every day, and I know I could easily be one of those people. But this whole writing thing, this whole music thing, have managed to keep me somewhat sane over the years. All of the craziness I espouse on here is very much in the form of release.
I am very happy in my life with my wife and my career path, and I look forward to every day I spend on my school work and enjoying life and planning a family and doing things with my family and friends, and I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's. I am truly thankful for everything that I have.
Someday, my time will end, and, until that day, I am not going to miss out on life, on experiencing all aspects of life, the good, the bad, and attempting to make sense of it all in some form or another, even if just for myself. It would be nice to make a living as a writer, but I am not going to lose sleep on it if I don't. I will get my words and sentences and ideas out there in some form or another, widely available to anyone who is interested in partaking.
I truly appreciate everyone who reads this blog, who will read my stories and my novels and my poems and my essays and whatever else I decide to write, no matter how many or how few there are who read my work, I am and will continue to be extremely grateful that I have any sort of audience.
I know this might be verging on the sentimental, but I don't care. Is is sentimental if it is honest? I don't think so, but, that is a subjective feeling so how other people feel is entirely up to his/her subjective viewpoint. That's why it's important for me to be honest, to be true to myself and my desires and beliefs and opinions, and if people don't like what I have to say, then they don't have to read it. I am okay with that. Maybe that isn't a very marketable viewpoint -- I don't know -- but I would rather write for myself and hope that people are interested in what I have to say or at the very least are interested in a sort of mind-numbing train-wreck sort of way.
A lot of people are too focused on what's trending and what's marketable and what the audience will think, and who this will alienate, and who this will or won't appeal to, and not enough on just making art that is true to oneself. That's what it's important for me to focus on a way to earn a living aside from being a writer, whether it's being a professor or a writing instructor or a tutor or whatever other kind of job I can get with the degree I have and the degrees I am getting, and, if I can somehow get lucky and make the write connections and get my work to people who can help me get my writing out there to a mass audience, then great, but, if not, I will still be able to provide and be happy, cozy, surrounded by the people who I love.
Of course I do feel craft and style are important aspects of writing, so I will continue to hone my skills so I have all the tools an artist will need to make whatever kind of art I desire to make at any given time. Versatility is a good quality to have, in my book.
Well, anyway, back to reading/writing papers, thinking about my own novel, maybe taking a break every now and again to work on it and finish it. My goal is to be done with the writing/editing by January, which I can easily do if I don't waste my free time on nonsense, so I can work on getting it and my stories I have chosen to coincide with it out to an exponentially growing audience. I can only do so much here on my own on this blog, I am going to have to get my writing out to other markets and grow my audience, so I can prove to agents/publishers that I am marketable. I didn't say that I wasn't going to try to sell it and publish it, but I am going to write it in the way that I want. I believe persistence is the key to success in the publishing world, from everything that I've read. And if I fail at first, I will keep trying, all the while progressing through school and through life.
Well, anyway, back to reading about the present tense and brainstorming my paper on that aspect of Rabbit, Run. I have two other papers, but I am trying to get this one really going (I have an abstract and a draft due on Monday), because the other two are less ambitious and will come much easier since I have already done most of the research and know fairly exactly how I am going to approach them.
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